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Avant Jazz & Poetry
Two leading forces of America’s jazz avant-garde movement converge for a workshop on music improvisation and poetry.
Musician and poet Elliott Levin (saxophone & flute) is a Philadelphia-based artist who founded the groups Interplay and New Ghost, performed in Cecil Taylor’s large ensembles for decades, and is featured on Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons release (2025 Otherly Love Music). Damon Smith (bass) has contributed to the dynamic music improvisation communities of Oakland, Houston, Boston, and Saint Louis for over three decades, and has supported the field through his recording label Balance Point Acoustics since 2001.
Damon Smith studied double bass with Lisle Ellis and has had lessons with Bertram Turezky, Joëlle Leandré, John Lindberg, Mark Dresser and others. Damon’s explorations into the sonic palette of the double bass have resulted in a personal, flexible improvisational language based in the American jazz avant-garde movement and European non-idiomatic free improvisation. Visual art, film and dance heavily influence his music, as evidenced by his CAMH performance of Ben Patterson’s Variations for Double Bass, collaborations with director Werner Herzog on soundtracks for Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World, and an early performance with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company.
Damon has collaborated with a wide range of musicians, including: Cecil Taylor, Marshall Allen (of Sun Ra’s Arkestra), Henry Kaiser, Keith Rowe, Jaap Blonk,Roscoe Mitchell, Weasel Walter, Michael Pisaro, Wadada Leo Smith, Weasel Walter, Marco Eneidi, Wolfgang Fuchs, Peter Brötzmann and Peter Kowald. After many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, and six great years in Houston, Texas working regularly with Alvin Fielder, Sandy Ewen, Thomas Helton, David Dove & Chris Cogburn. Damon moved to the Boston area in the fall of 2016 and began working with Jeb Bishop, Pandelis Karayorgis, Joe McPhee and Ra-Kalam Bob Moses and many others. Damon has run Balance Point Acoustics record label since 2001, releasing music focusing on transatlantic collaborations between US and European musicians.
Improvisers Exchange Ensemble is an eclectic student performance group of the School of Music exploring sound and music through collective improvisation. Under the direction of Jason Finkelman, the ensemble develops a practice of omni-idiomatic improvisation, where musicians of all backgrounds and experiences create meaningful music in the moment. In addition to the ensemble, Improvisers Exchange is a multidimensional programming line of Global Arts Performance Initiatives offering concerts, workshops, lectures, artist residencies, and other engagements promoting broadly the field of music improvisation.
